Properties oe Colorado Wheat 
15 
comparable as the preceding pair given, still the samples grown 
on fallowed land contained 14.09 and that grown on cropped land 
10.42 percent of protein, or, in general terms, gluten. With us, 
then, to cultivate the land fallow the year before it is planted to 
wheat helps wonderfully in increasing the hardness of our wheats. 
I have given the reason as being due to the accumulation of nitro¬ 
gen, and its conversion into the form best suited for use by the 
wheat plant. If we had from 40 to 60 inches of rainfall, as they 
have in some states, the nitrogen might be washed out if no 
precautions were taken to prevent it, but with a rainfall of less 
than 15 inches per year, this does not make much difference. 
When the potash does not produce yellow, spotted and mealy 
berries, it produces a distinctly lighter color in the wheat grains, 
which is easily recognized, also a marked plumpness, and the 
grains really crush easier than the flinty or dark colored grains 
grown in the same field. The yellow-berry grains crush more 
easily than the flinty grains picked out of the same sample. In 
the case of the Defiance, we found that it took 8 pounds more to 
crush the flinty grains than it took to crush the yellow-berry 
grains ; in the case of the Kubanka it took 10 pounds more to crush 
the flinty than the yellow-berry grains. As the potash produces 
the yellow-berry and the light-colored wheat which is soft, we 
conclude that the presence of too large a proportion of this element 
is present in the soil. Of course, we may state it the other way, 
that as the addition of nitric acid or nitrates makes the grains 
flintv, there is too small a proportion of this element present in 
the soil to produce hard wheat. It makes no difference how we 
state it, the fact remains the same, i. e., to increase the nitric nitro- 
p’en in our soil tends to harden our wheat, without materially 
increasing the crop, and to increase the potash tends to soften it. 
NITROGEN MAY BE WASHED FROM LAND BY EXCES¬ 
SIVE RAINFALL OR IRRIGATION 
The statement made about the possibilitv of the nitrates being 
washed out of the land by excessive rainfall was emphasized by 
Knelish Avriters more than ,30 years ago as the following sentences 
makes A^erv plain : 
‘•It has, of course, long been known that an excess of wet is injurious 
to the wheat crop, but it is only comparatively recently, that one, at least, 
of the material causes of the adverse influence has been made out; namely, 
the great loss of nitrogen carried off by drainage in the form of nitrates." 
This is another manner, in addition to that already men¬ 
tioned, in Avhich rain may be bad for a Avheat crop. Too heavy 
and too frequent irrigations might produce the same effect. 
The application of 1 acre-foot of water on 12 June was not 
